P: Spring Loaded shortcuts more sensitive - Turn off toggling between tools

[FalconX444]

If you switch from a tool to another while holding the tool's shortcut button (i.e : switch from brush tool to eraser tool with a shortcut, but holding the "e" key while erasing something) make photoshop toggle between those tools. Some people may make use of it, but not me. In addition, the keyboard shortcut often lag, making photoshop do the toggle out of nowhere. It's really frustrating especially for Illustrators since I change the brush and eraser tool often. Please do something about it.

[DeadlyNinja]

This is why i cancelled my private membership almost a year ago or more, been using procreate for a long time and im way happier with it since this issue STILL isnt fixed and ive been having a problem with it since winter of 2018! Only use PS for work since the company pays for it and im still pissed at this 'feature' because it just cripples my workflow so much.  

[markm55101833]

Adding my voice to the people wanting to see this addressed, hoping it won't be long because it really messes with workflow patterns that have been in place for years.

The issue: Spring-loaded keys switches back to your previous tool if you were pressing a shortcut key when you started using that tool with the mouse/stylus. Its behaviour changed somewhere after the Photoshop 2019 releases.

Pre-2019 the spring-loaded function only occurred if you held the keyboard shortcut for the entire duration of your mouse/stylus stroke and then released the shortcut key after you lifted the mouse/stylus, at which point it would revert back to the previous tool when you released that shortcut key.

This was changed in a post-2019 version so you don't need to be holding the shortcut key for the entire duration of the stroke, if you release it at any point in the stroke it will make it spring loaded and revert to the previous tool when the stroke finishes.

Why this is a problem: It is incredibly disruptive to workflow and user experience because it makes tool changes happen independently to your input. With how spring-loaded keys worked previously, they only occurred when you were intentionally holding the shortcut key for the entire stroke duration, and the revert happened when you released the key; this makes sense and is intuitive since the tool only changed when you were operating its shortcut key. Now the revert doesn't happen when you release the key, it is instead queued up if you released the key at all during the stroke: this is unintuitive and can lead to situations where you do a 10 second long brush stroke and then have the program change tools on its own as soon as you lift your stylus even if you released the shortcut key 9 seconds ago.

The real problem for day-to-day use with this is that illustrators rapidly switch between the brush and eraser tools and work at a fast enough pace that they start a stroke essentially simultaneously with when they press the shortcut key, which means they always register as spring-loaded since it sees that the key was being pressed when the stroke started, even though the key is released literally immediately and the artist never wanted it to be spring-loaded. This was fine with the previous intuitive spring-loaded key implementation (where it only happened if you were holding the key the entire stroke duration), but now it results in every eraser stroke ending with the the tool suddenly swapping back to the brush without user input.

The solution: Return to the pre-2019 functionality where you have to be holding the key for the entire stroke and only have it revert tools when you release the key after the stroke is complete. Alternatively, only queue a spring-loaded tool reversion if you've held the key down for a reasonable length of time beyond what could be accidental (e.g. half a second or more).

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This issue needs to be solved. My eraser and brush tool will randomly switch between each other as well after clicking on the hot key to switch. This is highly disruptive to my workflow and has only been an issue for the past year or so. Stop changing things that never needed to fixed! And please consider us digital painters in your updates! Every other update has affected something that virtually all digital painters do on a day to day basis. 

[leosn56185363]

@dmohr Hey David, it had been over half a year since you put in the request, and more updates had come and went, and nothing is done. Will you just accept that this is a bug and not a feature and escalate it as such? Meanwhile your programmers rather spent their time on doing stupid things like changing how the "Save as" option work, than fixing something that directly affecting the users' workflow. 

Again, do we have to say again, it's half a year, and even more since we brought this issue up! And I will straight up tell you I no longer recommend photoshop to any of the new students in the industry. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I think I might have found a temporarily solution with AutoHotKey by mapping "b" and "e" to actually send each letter twice (since it happens most often for me when I switch frequently between brush and eraser while drawing) - I'll need to test it a bit more over the coming weeks but it seems to be promising, at least until Adobe addresses it.

[Guest]

OMG you are a lifesaver! I downloaded AutoHotKey and mapped my brush & eraser keys to send twice -- it's working really well so far! Thank you so much!!! Let's hope Photoshop comes with a solid fix for this soon.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

You're welcome, I'm glad it's working for you! 

[Lil Miss Jay]

I see they deleted my previous comment telling everyone how garbage the latest update is and how it removed ".jpg"/".png" etc. from the Save As function and created a new Save As Copy function that has to be pressed to save a file as a flattened image automatically adding "copy" to the end of the filename. Wouldn't want people seeing negative feedback on your product, eh Adobe? So you're clearly listening and removing negative feedback but you're not listening when we ask for a feature that MAKES THE TOOL ONLY SWITCH WHEN WE PRESS THE BUTTON TO SWITCH TO IT.

I WANT TO USE THE ERASER? I PRESS E.

I WANT TO USE THE BRUSH? I PRESS B.

NOTICE HOW I DIDN'T SAY "I WANT TO USE THE ERASER? I PRESS B AND THEN WHEN I LET GO OF B IT GOES BACK TO THE ERASER"?

THAT'S BECAUSE I WANT IT TO ONLY SWITCH TOOLS WHEN I PRESS THE BUTTON TO SWITCH TOOLS

NOT WHEN I LET GO OF A DIFFERENT TOOL BUTTON

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST IMPLEMENT THE DAMN TOGGLE FEATURE ADOBE

I can't believe it's such a foreign concept that some people only want to switch to a tool when that tool's key is pressed. Under no circumstances, if my finger is on "B" and NOT "E" should the tool EVER swap to the Eraser.

I did not press E, I did not WANT to use the Eraser, I pressed B

B

B FOR BRUSH

THE B KEY

If it is swapping to Eraser when I hit Brush, it is not doing what I want it to do, I should not have to use AutoHotKey to force the B and E and other tool keys to double-tap when I press them to avoid accidentally switching tools

Because I should NOT BE ACCIDENTALLY SWITCHING TOOLS

[leosn56185363]

@Jay Van Esbroek  Hahahah it's the stupid Spring-loaded "Feature" I had been bugging them for months on that on another thread, even their help staffs on twitter (who claimed their engineers are on it) We need more ppl bugging them on that thread

I presume you're a digital painter like me? Because I think this only affect mostly digital painters who tend to switch our tools fast 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The Spring Loaded shortcuts feature has completely ruined my workflow. There's no way to disable it and I switch tools far too quickly and far too often for it to be useful to me; it has broken my ability to work quickly and causes me to make many mistakes. I'll be switching to Clip Studio until this feature can be disabled.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi guys!

Created a macro-script to bypass the springloaded features for artists who constantly presses "B" and "E".

Hope it helps!

https://gum.co/zQAqo

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Spring Loaded Tool is absolute garbage!!! Why the F do you people at Adobe "assume" the entire community will want something this terrible!!?? 

You guys are always doing stuff like this and it's so annoying. 

[DeadlyNinja]

@dmohr well we're getting close to my 1year prediction to fix this after you submitted the feature request XD;

[DeadlyNinja]

Still waiting for this bug to be fixed ;_;

[leosn56185363]

Meanwhile their direct competitor (Clip Studio Paint) for digital artists, know exactly what's wrong and gave both options for people who don't want this feature, and those that want, and a third option for those that want a little more control over it. They also allow the user to choose between Wintab or Tablet PC service to operate.

Seriously, Adobe really need to wake up. Right now, we are not moving to your competitor products by choice, but because you guys are forcing us by breaking our workflows.

[leosn56185363]

@dmohr Hey David, it's getting close to a year since you placed in your request, and over a year since this issue are bought up. Can't you just escalate this "feature request" ticket to a "bug fix" ticket and try expedite it?

Seriously, fixing a broken "feature" shouldn't be treated as a feature request at all

[Seth24992392wc6n]

I know this thread is old but there is a fix now in preferences. File>edit>preferences>tools and then just simply uncheck spring loaded tool shortcuts